Testimony in David Camm murder trial ends with focus on blood stained T-shirt

Oct. 17, 2013

David Camm arrives at the Boone County Courthouse in Lebanon, Ind., on Aug. 22, 2013. / Charlie Nye / The Star

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LEBANON, IND. — Testimony in David Camm’s triple-murder trial wrapped up Wednesday afternoon after nearly eight weeks and a long parade of witnesses, giving way to a final stage that will decide the fate of the former Indiana State trooper from Georgetown.

Special Judge Jonathan Dartt told the jury of eight women and four men that on Monday they’ll hear closing arguments, receive final instructions and start deliberations while being sequestered. They’ll deliberate daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Boone County Courthouse until they reach a verdict.

Looking exhausted and relieved, prosecutors and defense lawyers filtered slowly out of the government building saying they couldn’t say precisely what jurors took away from the mountain of evidence and witness testimony since late August, particularly experts’ opinions about how Jill Camm’s tiny blood droplets were deposited on her father’s T-shirt.

“Blood spatter is not the only evidence in this case. There’s a lot of things for the jury to consider, (but) that’s certainly a major part,” Special Prosecutor Stan Levco said.

Camm is accused of fatally shooting his wife, Kim Camm, 35, and their children — Brad, 7, and Jill, 5, in the garage of their Georgetown home. After two previous convictions were overturned on appeal, a third trial has been held in Lebanon, northwest of Indianapolis, in an effort to ensure the jury has not been tainted by media coverage.

Camm, 49, left the state police four months before the murders and has maintained his innocence, saying he was playing basketball at a nearby church. A New Albany ex-convict, Charles Boney, was convicted in the murders in 2006 and is serving a 225-year prison sentence.

On Wednesday, both sides’ witnesses focused on blood stains on the T-shirt, droplets that Camm has said were brushed on his shirt from Jill’s blood-soaked hair while reaching to pull Bradley from his wife’s Ford Bronco for CPR.

Prosecutors insisted that the droplets were impact spatter from a gunshot, showing Camm was present when his family was slain.

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Tom Bevel, a blood-stain pattern analyst from Oklahoma, refuted assertions by defense witness Eugene Liscio, a crime-scene reconstructionist and animator, who had said it would be difficult or nearly impossible for Camm to have gotten blood stains on the hem of his T-shirt from gunshot spatter.

Bevel said that his own reconstruction using projectile rods to simulate the trajectory of the bullet that killed Jill Camm inside the SUV showed that the shooter could fire the gun using his right hand, left hand or both hands and still get back spatter on the lower edge of the T-shirt.

Barie Goetz, a reconstructionist and forensic consultant from Parker, Pa., who testified earlier for the defense, returned to offer the opposite opinion. He said tests performed with a T-shirt similar to Camm’s showed that the blood couldn’t have been sprayed from the girl’s head because they were deposited so close to the hem of the shirt.

That would have required the shirt to be above, not below the girl’s head, Goetz said.

Cross-examinations of the two focused primarily on experiments and re-enactments which lawyers asserted didn’t fairly represent the real crime scene. For instance, defense lawyer Richard Kammen grilled Bevel about a video played in court in which the expert’s 20-year-old son played Camm, reaching into a Bronco to simulate pulling out Brad’s lifeless body.

Bevel admitted under questioning that the mannequin he used weighed 25 pounds, 45 pounds less than Brad Camm’s weight when he died. He agreed the difference in weight would make it difficult to replicate the way a person would move and brace himself while pulling the boy’s body from the rear seat.

Goetz testified about a video shown in court where he’s seen leaning over a bloodied doll’s head. The droplets, once slightly dried, he said, had brushed into both all-cotton and 50-50 cotton-polyester blended shirts he used in the experiments.

He said magnified photos of the stains mirrored some found near the hem of Camm’s shirt.

Jurors also heard direct testimony from Carl Sobieralski, the Indiana State Police’s top DNA analyst and the supervisor of the agency’s four labs, who hammered at methods and results returned by Dutch “touch” DNA analyst Richard Eikelenboom.

Eikelenboom had said recently that his tests found Charles Boney’s DNA on the waistband of Kim Camm’s underwear and on Jill Camm’s shirt. But Sobieralski said his review of Eikelenboom’s report and supporting scientific documentation showed that the firm, Independent Forensic Services, failed to perform several tests to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the results.

Jurors were told that they will be given time during the next two working days to review evidence presented during the last two weeks. They will also have a private viewing of the Bronco again.

Before leaving the courtroom, they were told they should pack clothes to bring with them Monday because they will remain sequestered, staying overnight in a hotel, until they deliver a verdict.